Outcry as Singapore executes man with learning difficulties over drugs offence

An activist holds a picture of Nagaenthran K Dharmalingam, a man with learning difficulties who has been executed in Singapore for drug smuggling. Photograph: Fazry Ismail/EPA

A man with learning difficulties has been executed in Singapore for attempting to smuggle a small amount of heroin, despite repeated pleas for his life to be spared, in a case campaigners have described as a “tragic miscarriage of justice”.

Nagaenthran K Dharmalingam, a Malaysian national, was arrested in 2009, aged 21, for attempting to carry 43g of heroin – about three tablespoons – into Singapore. He was sentenced to death the following year, and then spent more than a decade on death row.